At the end of this weekend, most of the world woke up to CEO Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan snapping up a mid-sized bank with a wealthy deposit class.
There are many hot takes. One you will see in most reports, including our sister publication the FT, is that America’s largest bank made a pretty good deal. One aspect of this deal that I found amusing is that all of First Republic’s branches in eight US states are now rebranded ‘JPMorgan Chase’ – banks can move pretty fast when they want to.
One I have yet to see, and one that does and does not hark back to the global banking crisis, is that these traumas are all part of adolescent growing pains of a naïve tech community and nascent fintech sector. (Yes, I chose those words ‘naïve’ and ‘nascent’ deliberately.)
But what does this have to do with the tech industry and fintech, and how does it relate to the 2008 banking crisis? I feel it does, but not in the way the writers of a supermarket tabloid would have you believe.
During the last banking crisis, 15 years ago, the crux of many issues…